Eleven rural physicians from Clinton, NC wrote to the Sampson Independent over the weekend to express their grave reservations about Governor McCrory’s privatization plan being touted by McCrory’s DHHS Secretary Aldona Wos and Medicaid Director Carol Steckel:

As proposed by Gov. Pat McCrory and Secretary Wos, this plan would essentially move decision making regarding care from local physicians to out-of-state managed care companies. In our opinion, North Carolina citizens deserve care directed by North Carolina physicians, NOT care directed by out-of state managed care company administrators. The proposal to outsource Medicaid management to the MCO’s has been tried in several other states, and failed miserably, including Kentucky, Connecticut, Alabama, and Idaho. These states, along with Colorado and Oklahoma, are moving towards building a system similar to the nationally recognized model that has been built by North Carolina physicians called Community Care of North Carolina. This is a physician-driven, patient centered system of care that has saved the taxpayers of NC hundreds of millions of dollars over the past several years by giving patients a medical home and coordinated care built on evidence-based medicine. Read more here.